Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread

What would a summer barbecue be without cornbread? The difference: ours has jalapenos and cheddar, and you can make it, start-to-finish, in about 25 minutes! We will confess that we have a weakness for this jalapeno cheddar cornbread.

We love Sean Brock’s Heritagecookbook (as well as his restaurants!) for Southern culinary inspiration. It’s one of our go-to cookbooks for the best Southern recipes and cooking tips. The photography is beautiful and we’ve never made something out of it we didn’t love. Get a copy here, you won’t be sorry!

Brock’s recipe is so simple. There is a minimum of ingredients, it takes one bowl to prepare, and cooks in a cast iron pan in a very hot oven for just 20 minutes. It has a perfectly crispy crust (on both sides, thanks to the hot cast iron pan).

To make our jalapeno cheddar cornbread, we started with the recipe from Heritage, then added one thinly sliced jalapeno and one cup of grated cheddar cheese (this is by our favorite grater, but we also just found this one that looks amazing) to the batter, then cooked it according to the book instructions.

Be sure to check out some of our favorite summer recipes and cocktails here.